Thursday, January 24, 2013

Simple Chicken Soup

Today our corner of the world experienced something called Freezing Rain. And it was very cold, even in the house. Plus a couple of us were not feeling well, so it was the absolute perfect day for chicken noodle soup! I used this post as my starting point and here's what I did:

We had about 2.5 cups of frozen turkey stock left from Thanksgiving, which I put in the pot, on medium heat. Then I chopped up 1 onion, 8 carrots and 5 celery stalks, and put them in the pot as I completed each kind of veggie. I pulled out 4 boneless-skinless chicken pieces and put them in the microwave to thaw just a little. I cut them into very thin slices, similar to the carrot "coins", and chicken is easy to cut if its partially frozen. I put in two bay leaves, a tbsp of minced garlic, 3 cups of water, 2 cubes of chicken bouillon and some black pepper. My husband added maybe a tbsp of lemon juice too.

I was going to put in egg noodles, but I mentioned that I don't like noodles in my soup and my husband said it would be totally fine to leave them out! yeay! haha! With the chicken cut as thin as it was, it didn't take long to cook- really only until the carrots were done. We served it with biscuits and there was our dinner! I think my quantity will do 7-8 servings. And it was very tasty!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Chicken with spinach and mozzarella

It's been a while!! I've been just making more of the same for the last long while, or even (gasp!) eating out! But here's a post for you!

I needed a new idea for dinner and saw this linked on facebook. So, I tried browsing the links and we had the ingredients for this one so hey, hey! there was the winner!
Well, I sort of had the ingredients. I didn't know we were out of shredded mozzarella, so I used string cheese, haha! And because it won't get over 20* outside...and my grill is totally covered in ice and snow, I didn't grill the chicken- I just browned it on the stove. meaning I cut the frozen pieces of chicken into two (giving them all a flat side), laid the pieces in a hot cast iron pan, ground up some black pepper over them, and sprinkled on a bit of seasoning salt as the chicken cooked.
I used another pan to heat up the spinach mixture.
When the chicken was cooked thru, I put the pieces on a foil-lined cookie sheet, smothered each piece with the spinach mixture, and topped that with strings of cheese, haha. Most of the chicken pieces got a slice of frozen red pepper, but I knew the kids wouldn't love it so I left it off some. The spinach was SOO tasty with the garlic!
I served it with some not-totally-done brown rice, the crunch made it so tasty!! And then just some simple mixed vegetables on the side.
My son didn't love the spinach, even tho he loves garlic, but the rest of us enjoyed it a lot!
Too bad the lighting in our dining room is crummy, especially at dinner time...